CHASE

The blue crayon slur was preceded by a pencil slur, indicating that David undertook at least two phases of revision.

Here and in the other pieces in the volume David has duplicated his printed fingerings with blue crayon ones. Unless an MS fingering obscures a different printed fingering these will not be commented upon later.

tast (tastiera - fingerboard) has been deleted here. David's teacher, Spohr, comments in his Violinschule upon the effectiveness of playing over the fingerboard to acheive a soft tone.

Alternate MS V signs have been deleted here.

David seems to have been uncertain about his intended bowing here. The short slurs were first made in pencil, apparently the same as the long slurs. The same is true on the 5th and 6th staves. The ones emphasised in blue crayon were probably his later choice.

Printed 2 under MS 4.

Blue crayon Vs were apparently deleted here and in the 1st bar of the next stave, the first and last being replaced by Π.

crayon 3 deleted in pencil.

Crayon 3 deleted in pencil

Despite the mordents in bb. 4 and 8 it seems clear that David's wavy lines signify left-hand vibrato. Such markings occur periodically in the Hohe Schule. It is interesting here that David appears to have played the forte opening bars with a steady left hand, reserving the vibrato for the pianissimo repetition.

David radically revised his bowing scheme.

This fingereing can only be for the sake of portamento.

There is a printed V here.

The conjunction of David's espr[essivo] with his alteration of a slur to an articulated slur may hint at the signification of this term elsewhere.

As in b. 5 David marked vibrato (partly obscured by the Π).

David's abbreviation spgd stands for springend (springing), denoting a sautillé bowstroke. The association with staccato dots is typical. It seems likely that a return to a broader stroke on the string was envisaged during the following crescendo. The bow must certainly have returned to the upper half in preparation for the V 5 bars later.

David emphasises the broad détaché bowstroke desired (despite the printed staccato strokes) by marking -.

Here and in the next bar David again marked vibrato.

The changed bowing here facilitates remaining in the upper half of the bow, which in turn necessitates the slurred staccato in the following bar.

This is a typical reverse bowing (with V on the strong beats) played close to the point.

Fr is David's normal abbreviation for the Frosch (heel) of the bow. For David the 'default' bowing for separate notes will have been on the string in the upper half of the bow and he seems to have been careful to indicate where he intended a different type of stroke.

Here the staccato dots combined with p again suggest a sautillé bowstroke.

Although Spohr associates vibrato (tremolo) with sf and other accents in his 1833 Violinschule, David often uses harmonics in such cases, which cannot of course be played with vibrato.

The significance of espr[essivo] here is unclear.

The pencil N above and below the stave here and the similar orange crayon N at the bottom of the page does not appear to be in Ferdinand David's hand, but may well be in that of his son Paul. From its context here and elsewhere in the volume, it seems clear that it stands for Nut i.e. the heel of the bow. Presumably the other orange makings were by the same person.

The word rutschen (slide) appears to indicate a portamento between the crotchets, where on each occasion a position change takes place, despite the lines under the slurs. This may suggest that for David lines under slurs indicate more a nuanced slur than one in which there is a definite separation, although it would also be possible for him to have executed the portamento in the manner similar to that employed between notes performed with separate bows, sliding from the first then making a very short gap before the second note.

Tranquillo here and elsewhere may well be used by David as an indication to slacken the tempo slightly, but probably less markedly than ritard. It often occurs at cadences in this volume. Both Mendelssohn and Brahms seem to have used the term in this sense. (See Clive Brown, 'Joachim's violin playing and the performance of Brahms's string music' pp. 89-90, and Styra Avins, 'Performing Brahms's music: clues from his letters' p. 22, in Performing Brahms ed. M. Musgrave and B. D. Sherman (Cambridge, 2003).

See note on stave 2.

The bowing indications here are revealing. In the first bar Sp (Spitze - point) is obscured by a later pencil deletion, probably not by David. On the 6th note of the second bar a sf flings the bow towards the heel and then on the 1st note of the next bar a vigorous down-bow returns the bow to the point. The same procedure takes place in the next bar, but for the p in the 2nd bar of the stave he marks M (Mitte - middle) after which, with the crescendo, the bow presumably broadens in the upper half, before a new attack at the heel where talon is printed.

Tastiera indicating performance over the fingerboard. The word is abbreviated tast on several occasions further down the page.

See the note to tranquillo on p. 6.